The Prince Who Wanted Love

But the English roses had adapted themselves to the Balkans in much the same way as Princess Catherine had managed to do when she had been sent by Queen Victoria to save yet another Principality from being invaded by the Russians. - didn't Britain invade/colonize countries herself?????

Princess Catherine had been amongst the very first English brides that Queen Victoria had sent to the Balkans to save the Principality of Tamrush from being ‘gobbled up’, as the Politicians expressed it, by the unending greed of the Russian Empire. - again, the British Empire did the same thing...

He laughed as he continued, “I remember being terrified in case you were old, ugly and aggressive.  Instead of which an angel walked into the Palace and I knew that I was the luckiest man ever to be blessed by God and the Queen of Great Britain!” “My darling, you say such wonderful things to me,” Princess Catherine whispered.  “And I loved you from the moment I saw you.  You were so handsome and exactly as a Prince ought to look like.  I too was afraid that it would be someone who looked foreign and rather unpleasant.” - why should a 'foreigner' be considered unattractive???

“I hope that what you are saying is true,” her father said.  “But remember it is always, I think, rather vulgar to accentuate your own valuable and flamboyant possessions to people who have very little, often through no fault of their own.” It was so like her father to think of other people, Lavinia told herself. - people who think of others uplift others. Judging by the poverty of many people in Tamrush i.e. couldn't buy jewellry etc. thinking of others without 'doing' doesn't help at all.

“And I pride myself on having the best horses in the Balkans and so far I have proved it in every race I have entered them in.” - a real horse lover wouldn't subject his horses to anything that could hurt or kill them as these races often do...

"you will, for the moment, have saved Prince Igor and I am quite convinced a number of smaller Principalities who shiver every night when they retire to bed in case they wake up in the morning to find a Russian at their door.” “How can the Czar be so wicked as to make people so unhappy?” Lavinia asked. - same question can be said of the British Empire...

Secretly to herself, she had thought that whatever anyone in the country might say to her, whatever pleadings would be made, if she did not love him and he did not love her, it would be impossible for them to be married simply because they would bring children into the world who were not an integral part of love. Perhaps all the misery that Prince Igor had suffered when he was a child would be repeated. Not because she would ever be cruel to them, but because, if their father and mother did not love each other, they could not expect to have the real love that every child needs to have as the basis of its home. - true!